Watercolour Wonderland

Hey ho! Another Christmas card today and for this one I got a bit arty and had fun with some water and ink!

I began with spritzing my heavy watercolour paper then laid down a layer of diluted balmy blue for my sky, fading it as I went down the paper. After drying that off, I inked my tree stamp with old olive and spritzed it with water too before stamping the distant trees. The foreground trees got the same treatment with mossy meadow ink and I sponged along the bottom to 'ground' them. Once everything was dry I ran it through my Big Shot with the subtle embossing folder to give it even more texture - up close it seriously looks like a watercolour painting. Stamped my sentiment on vellum and as there are tiny specks of gold in the ivory powder, I added three small gold sequins.

Simple but gorgeous, in my humble opinion (lol)! And perfect for the summer Christmas here in Aus. Hope you like too.

Materials used:

• stamps - Wonderland
• card - heavy watercolour, vellum, thick very vanilla
• other - aged ivory embossing powder (Stampendous), heat tool, metallic sequins, mounting tape, subtle embossing folder, Big Shot, Tombow glue, tweezers, paint brush, water spritzer

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Elegant in its Simplicity

Today's card came about because I was keen to do some more colouring on the Magnolia Lane papers (see here for my first attempt), plus I had a hankering to use purple posy cardstock. I haven't used it before - probably waiting, in my head, for the ink pad to become available. But as I've been making other pastel-shaded cards this week (no, you haven't missed them; I haven't put them up yet, as they're for next week's class) I guess I was still in a pastel frame of mind.

Anyhow, I began colouring the magnolia paper again using SU's blends, but unfortunately even the light purple posy marker was too dark for the effect I was after. Consequently, I got out my Copics and found some shades that gave much closer to what I had in mind. Here's how that went:

I didn't feel it needed anything else added to it but sent a sneak peek to my BFF to ask for her opinion, which I value as she's a much more experienced crafter. She agreed and in fact described the card as 'elegant in its simplicity' which was very flattering and why that's my post header. 

If you look closely you'll see that as well as the background panel being embossed with the extremely versatile Subtle embossing folder, the panel of designer paper was too. This gives it a look not dissimilar to a picture on canvas and is an effect I LOVE. So yep, I'd say there's a fair amount of certainty you'll be seeing more of that, lol.

Materials used:

• stamps - none
• card - purple posy, basic black, Magnolia Lane DSP
• other - Copic markers V0000, V000 and V01, subtle embossing folder, Big Shot, Dimensionals, water spritzer

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

Yellow Magnolias

On today's card I had fun with some colouring and distressing. Here's a look at the finished product:

In this close up you can see the treatment I gave the background piece - I swiped the inside of the subtle embossing folder with white ink before running it through the Big Shot, giving this slightly 'aged' look which complements the distressing. 

And here is a comparison of the original paper with how it looked after colouring. You could do this with any colour at all, of course, so you can bet I'll be experimenting again!

Materials used:

• stamps - Thoughtful Branches
• card - basic black, daffodil delight, vellum, Magnolia Lane DSP
• other - stitched rectangle die, Big Shot, Stamparatus, metallic sequins, distressing tool, subtle embossing folder, black bakers twine, Dimensionals, water spritzer, mini glue dots, Stampin' Blends (daffodil delight)

Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers
Kez

When Even Therapy Doesn't Work

After about the last 50 hours with frustrations piling one on top of another, I decided I was in dire need of some DO therapy. That's distress oxides therapy, for those of you who haven't been coming here long enough to be familiar with that particular obsession. Not even able to gather enough grey matter to choose my own colour combo, I consulted my Pinterest board and found one suggested by Kristina Werner that appealed, and set to.

But even my DO's added to the s*** pile; I had to have two goes at the background because my stamping turned out a little crooked but the second one was no better - in fact it smudged a little. So you know what? I decided to go ahead and finish my card off anyway with the first, slightly crooked one, 'cause frankly, my dears, I just don't give a monkeys. You'll forgive me, right? You'll understand and sympathise with my plight and allow me this modicum of crafting leeway, just this once. Aww, ta.

So here it is, the therapy that didn't quite work. If you ignore the fact the writing's a bit skew-whiff, it ain't half bad I reckon.

Materials used:

• stamps - You Matter, You Matter Background (Simon Says Stamp)
• card - shimmer white, whisper white, pink pirouette
• distress oxide inks - spun sugar, picked raspberry, wilted violet, picket fence
• other - You Matter die (SSS), Big Shot, Stamparatus, popcorn box thinlits, mini Dimensionals, water spritzer, heat tool

Fingers crossed I get my DO mojo back soon! Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

...yep, Christmas.

I'm looking forward to getting back into classes with my lovely ladies and we're starting off with a Christmas stamp-a-stack. Luckily I could get some Holiday Catalogue pre-order goodies delivered so they were waiting for me when I got home. Here's our first, a simple yet elegant offering (imo) featuring a new stamp set along with some old favs.

Materials used:

• stamps - Toile Christmas, Stylish Christmas
• card - very vanilla, mossy meadow
• other - Christmas cardinal dies, pretty pines thinlits, Big Shot, Dimensionals, cherry cobbler and mango melody Stampin' Blends, pinewood planks embossing folder, stitched rectangle framelit, stitched framelit (non SU), black craft ink, clear embossing powder, embossing buddy, heat tool, Stamparatus

Isn't it a gorgeous image? Love this one.

Our other card is also a mix of old and new, along with a touch of non-SU (hehe that rhymes). Here tis:

Materials used:

• stamps - Holly Jolly Greetings
• paper - whisper white, night of navy, silver foil
• other - frosted frames dies, Big Shot, snow swept border die (Cottage Cutz), Dimensionals, precision base plate, silver embossing powder, heat tool, embossing buddy

So there you have it! Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

In the True Spirit of 'Better Late than Never'

My BFF snuck in a birthday while I was overseas - the sheer gall - and even though I rang her on the day, I didn't send a card. (Cos, you know, the whole 'only had nautical themed stamps with me' scenario.) Sooooooo, as we're getting together today and I have birthday goodies to bestow, I thought I'd best hop to and make a card as well. It would be Expected (yep, with a capital. Just sayin'.).

Now, she loves distress oxides (in fact I may be 98.99% responsible for enabling her own DO passion) so I knew I couldn't go wrong with a sponged background. As luck would have it, I had a few made up already, so grabbed one of those. The card is very simple but I love it and I hope she will too.

Materials used:

• stamps - Beautiful Friendship
• card - whisper white, basic black, Sahara sand
• distress oxide inks - don't know cos, like I said, I had it made up already from months ago - there's two greens and two blues, though, if that helps?
• other - Stamparatus, stitched rectangle framelits, Big Shot, Dimensionals, chipboard branch/birds embellishment (origin unknown, sorry), blender tools, subtle embossing folder, water spritzer, Tombow glue

If that's us sitting on the branch, we'd be taking turns being the bird with the open beak, lol. We do tend to have a good old chin-wag whenever we get together! That's what besties are for, right?

Thanks for calling in.

Cheers

Kez

Pop of Colour

Hi, I'm back! Came from a lovely warm climate to a cold blast from the Antarctic, it feels like, lol!

To welcome me back our team challenge this month is to add a pop of colour - whether that be background colour or simply colouring in line art stamps. Well, you know I love me some colouring but I also have been looking for an excuse to play with my pigment sprinkles (#inkyfingers), so I made a card with a combination of both.

These inks take a bit of getting used to and there are so many different effects you can make that you could spend weeks just playing and experimenting. This background piece was my third effort, so I count that as a win! 

Materials used:

• stamps - Butterfly Gala
• card - very vanilla, watercolour, basic black
• other - pigment sprinkles, water spritzer, paper towels, Stampin Blends highland heather and mango melody, greetings thinlits, Big Shot, stitched rectangle framelit, Dimensionals, basic black marker, heat tool

This one is a bit out of the box for me so I'll be interested to hear what you think.

Thanks for stopping by.

Cheers

Kez